


The Chimera Ant King's Consort

by saezuri_nohito



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 22:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4322364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saezuri_nohito/pseuds/saezuri_nohito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the King had died, while Pitou was left to live by Gon in the end so that he will not lose his humanity and due to the King's "I'm counting on you," declaration, Pitou felt obligated to take care of Komugi?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chimera Ant King's Consort

**Author's Note:**

> This story diverts from canon around the part where Pitou was killed by Gon. The King was also killed straight away by the Rose bomb.

Pitou was, against all expectations, the remaining Royal Guard left alive. The unexpected appearance of the reborn again Kite as the incarnation of the King's younger twin sister had shocked Gon out of his craze and grief and stopped him from fatally injuring Pitou.

.-.-.

The Rose bomb proved too much, even for the seemingly invincible Chimera Ant King. He had not survived the initial blast of the Rose bomb, and died straight away. Pufu and Yupi, who had reached his side too late and were unable to let him consume them in order to revive himself, out of despair, stayed with his corpse and eventually died due to exposure to the radiation within minutes as the centre of the blast was too near to them.

Pitou's first thought after discovering his liege and comrades were dead, was "for what am I living for now?"

It was not for revenge. He saw no point in that, especially since he could tell that Gon was perfectly capable of killing him off.

And then the King's last words reverberated to him in his mind. "Pitou, heal Komugi. I'm counting on you."

Komugi.

Yes. That's right. The King's first and foremost reaction the moment the palace had been invaded was not for himself, or for them, his guards.

But for her.

He cared for her in a different way than he did anything else.

If the King was still alive, Pitou knew that he would have decreed to protect Komugi with his life.

After all, he had already been severely reprimanded for letting the woman get hurt last time when that bird had attacked her.

Yes. He would live, he decided.

To protect the woman who held his King's heart, however fleeting a moment that had been.

.-.-.

"Why aren't you taking revenge for your king?"

"I was told - that if I make any more trouble, that she would be harmed,” Pitou admitted quietly.

"You forsake your king for her?"

"I care for her only because the King did," he said bluntly.

"…what was she to the King?"

"…a rival at Gungi who he could not and now, will never defeat."

"…what?" this was said in an understandably incredulous tone.

"The King was not interested in reproducing. His interest lay in more…intelligent inducing pursuits. In order to entertain him until the time of the selection came, we took the masters of various board games from all over East Groteau and had them battle him. He defeated every single one of them with ease…except for her." 

"If he had, then he would have bested the world's reigning Gungi champion. But as it turns out, she was the real deal. And because she could not see, she was not intimidated by us unlike the other players."

"We never thought that playing board games could change the King so much. But they did. She didn't even try to, but she changed him. She made him…different."

"Different how?"

"…Human,” Pitou said in the end. It had been a struggle to admit it, but it was the truth. “She made him human."

"He became…yielding when he hadn't been before, compassionate when he had been merciless, 

"The worst of it was…she made him lose his hunger for human meat. That really distressed us."

.-.-.

"I know you said that the King was not interested in reproducing. But is there, any chance whatsoever that…?"

"Not at all. If she were, I would have detected it from when I healed her injury. And...I would never have left her alone with you people if that was the case."

.-.-.

"What will happen to Komugi now?"

"What do you mean?"

"Her whole family is dead. She could still live on her earnings as a Gungi master, but I don't believe you will let her free that easily, even though she's blind, and is in general a normal human and thus understands nothing about what happened."

.-.-.

Seeing Komugi sobbing and inconsolable right after being told that the King had died, made Pitou feel that it was worth it to take care of this particular human, who shed sincere tears for his liege.

.-.-.

Aside from dealing with Komugi's enemies, one of the ways Pitou amused himself was to take his charge shopping and dress her up.

"…! This is way too short!" Komugi complained, feeling the skirt's lack of length. 

.-.-.

"Pitou, I'm assuming you're the one who dressed her in that?" Kite asked.

"Yes? Why do you ask?"

Questionable tastes…except she knew the cat was not interested in Komugi in that way whatsoever.

Noticing the way some males were looking at the petite, not quite scantily clad, but dressed rather cutely blind woman, Kite thought, _Is he trying to find an excuse to pick a fight with someone who would ogle Komugi or something?_

After all, the men were really not subtle in their appraisal, since she was clearly blind and would not notice or at least would not glare back at them for doing so.

 _Or is he dressing her according to what he imagined the King's tastes were like?_ The image of the serious Ant King palming through porn books his trio of bodyguards handed over to him in order to spark his interest in sex filled Kite's mind.

_…I think I need to check what kind of magazines he's been looking at…_

.-.-.

"Pitou-san. Why do stay with me?"

"Before he died, the King entrusted your wellbeing to me, Komugi." _My Queen_.

Truthfully, that title didn't sit very well with him, since he had served the Mother Ant Queen before his King. But for some reason or another, that title had been silently echoing in his mind, unbidden.

And one day, he realised why. Ten years after he had lost his liege and continued to live on by taking care of his King's chosen one, his charge has yet again, somehow managed to land herself in trouble.

Komugi had amazingly (or perhaps it was only to be expected?) remained unbeaten in Gungi for fifteen straight years, which was good in one sense because then she did not try to kill herself in the so far impossible scenario of her losing, which Pitou was conflicted if he should let happen or not, since it was her own desire.

But Komugi's long standing and uncontested rule as the Gungi Queen as well as her ability to win in the first place despite being blind attracted many worshipping, awed-struck rivals as well as more unscrupulous and un-law abiding enemies, who would stoop down low enough to try and get her out of the running by physically hurting her. Which meant at the very least, that Pitou did have a legitimate excuse to use his abilities to defend her and thus wasn't bored all the time, even though the ones sent to harm her hadn't counted on having to deal with an insanely strong bodyguard. But even the slight chance of her coming to unnatural harm made him fret for her safety a lot and thus he was hardly away from her most of the time.

Until that one time. 

"…You're her?" whoever it was who had managed to bypass him and get to Komugi either had a boyish voice, or was actually quite young.

And that voice…was somehow familiar. But who…? Gon and Killua's voices had broken quite a while back already and there was no one else that young who would visit them like this.

"…Supreme leader?" Komugi asked disbelievingly.

The boy's age was like the other who had spared his life a decade ago. But his looks…

The moment the boy had noticed him, he had picked up Komugi, who was much bigger than him easily and disappeared.

Pitou had been shocked still by the boy's looks and Komugi's identification of his voice…

It couldn't be…!

.-.-.

"Well, that was easier than I thought. And here I thought it would be more of a challenge," the boy said.

"…Put me down," Komugi whispered.

.-.-.

"Stop using that voice!"

"This is what I naturally sound like, you know," the boy said, confused."…Why are you crying?"

"You sound a lot like him. I can't…" she was trembling, her hands covering her ears, her eyes squeezed shut.

What did he even do?! The boy was both confused and rightfully angry.

Though since she wasn't even trying to run after he put her down, he just sat in front of her, looking at her curiously.

That cat like bodyguard of hers too, had been caught off guard when catching sight of his face.

Why…?

.-.-.

Pitou had never felt so confused before in his life. But ten years of dedication to Komugi had him automatically leaning on her side - especially because she was crying - despite how much he wanted to bow down in front of this as yet unknown and yet, so achingly familiar boy. "What did you to Komugi?!" he said, voice not quite raised to a snarl due to his conflicting emotions.

"I didn't do anything!" the boy declared, to which Komugi trembled further and set off Pitou's honed protective instincts.

"Stop lying!" he hissed.

"Then stop making me talk!" the boy said, sounding frustrated.

"Talk…?"

Oh. Oh. Of course. "Komugi, it's not him," Pitou informed her.

"…You're sure?" her voice was quiet.

His hesitation made her cry further. And this time, the boy was glaring at him.

"Why did you kidnap her?" Pitou asked.

"I was bored. You were supposed to be challenging," the boy bit out, hand clenched at the side.

.-.-.

A hunter. The boy was a hunter.

Employed by one of Komugi's enemies who finally resorted to sending someone challenging for once.

.-.-.

It was not widely known to the general public, but most of the older generation of hunters knew who both Komugi and Pitou were and the roles they played during the Ant regime of East Groteau.

Komugi's unintentional role in humanising the Chimera Ant King, which thus resulted in the successful end to the Chimeras' potential to take over the world had earned her a handful of superbly capable people who watched out for her safety and wellbeing from afar, without her knowledge. This included everyone who had been involved in the Chimera Ant incident.

Gon especially felt almost as obligated to Komugi as much as Pitou was, feeling guilty for threatening to kill her when it had been so clear that she was entirely innocent.

The fact that Zeno would secretly conduct checkups on her was a more surprising matter. As the first and so far only person he had unintentionally injured during a job, her continued wellbeing was something he felt concerned about and decided to look out for.

Pitou on the other hand, had been strictly designated as off-limits by the reborn Kite as well as Gon. The cat's unexpected never ending loyalty and desire to protect Komugi also made people change their minds about him, if only for the blind woman's sake.

The younger generation though, knew nothing of all this.

And one of them had been approached with a job to kidnap Komugi, and he had accepted.

And of all people, it was…

.-.-.

_\- Behind the scenes -_

Killua did not think too much of the first time his grandfather asked after his and Gon's checkup visit on Komugi and Pitou. The second time around though, he started feeling that his grandfather's interest in the matter was rather suspect, but did not outright question him. The third time around, he finally gave in and asked bluntly, "Why the interest, jii?"

"Oh, just wondering how the cat is treating that girl," the older assassin said dismissively. "Though the other chimera ants are also on the side of humans now, you still hesitate to trust him in particular don't you, since he was one of the strongest ants there was?"

"Something like that." After all, if Kite had not been reborn and surprisingly stood up for Pitou's defence, the cat would at the very least have been imprisoned somewhere. "But as long as we let him stay with Komugi and she remains safe, we don't have to worry about him."

"Is that so…?" Zeno drawled. "Well then." He walked off.

Despite Zeno asking mostly after Pitou, Killua now knew where the old man's main interest lay. 

_Don't tell me he still feels guilty for injuring her…?_

.-.-.

"So are you going to fight me or not?!"

"You're the last person I want to fight," Pitou said honestly.

"You're different from what I expected," the boy said finally, after all attempts at glaring yielded no results. "What if I hurt her?" he tried a different tactic, though he made no threatening move to the sleeping woman behind him.

"You will not," Pitou stated confidently.

The boy's eyes narrowed. "You're pretty sure about that."  

"If you had any intention of hurting her from the start, then you would not have put her to sleep in the first place."

It wasn't very visible, but because he had known him before, Pitou could tell that the boy was annoyed at his comment.

.-.-.

'I am the boy from before,' the hand's owner signed on her palm. 'My voice makes you cry for some reason. It is troublesome so I will not speak within your hearing.'

"Why…why are you here?" Komugi was surprised that she could speak at all, her throat felt so dry.

'You and the cat. You interest me. I want to know why I affect you two so much. Even though we have never met.'

.-.-.

The boy was persistent. Komugi never told Pitou to turn the boy away, knowing that he was conflicted between not distressing her further and spending more time with the boy. She always felt that the cat had no obligation to continue staying with her, but he did, so she did not wish to cause him any harm by making him choose.

But that meant the boy came over quite often and that wasn't good for her sanity.

.-.-.

The hunters had not been aware that Meruem had been reborn again as a human, even though he had joined their ranks. This was because he had not yet learned nen when he first appeared in front of Komugi and Pitou and thus remained unrecognisable by others.

Once they were made aware of him though via Kite, his background was thoroughly checked and personality assessed and they came to the conclusion that he was not out to conquer the world this time, at least so far. His interest in Komugi and Pitou also made the others decide to leave him be, for if he was distracted by them then at least he wasn't out doing something else more dodgy. Though they did of course keep a wary eye on him especially as he was growing stronger and stronger.

.-.-.

Snippets as the years went by:

Five years after he first came to them, Meruem told Pitou to take a day off. (Or to put it bluntly, the cat had been ordered to give his two charges some ample privacy).

Remembering a similar incident that happened before in a previous life, Pitou simply smirked and went off to a far away enough of a distance.

Once he no longer felt Pitou's presence, Meruem took Komugi's hand in his. But he didn't sign on it as he usually did, instead quietly, practically whispering it, he said her name.

"Komugi."

The sound of a voice she had not heard for such a long time made her flinch. But she didn't pull away from him.

"Pitou said I sound...right now. Is that true?"

She nodded mutely. His voice had broken, and it was exactly like the voice that haunted her dreams.

"Will you…stop crying now when you hear my voice?"

"I…I will try."

"Good enough."

And then he kissed her.

She didn't push him away this time either, though she looked rather red when he finally broke away.

"I didn't ask before in case you would reject me," he whispered. "May I?" he asked this time.

But that first kiss had left her breathless and so red in the face, and she couldn't think clearly and ~

Meruem hmmed. "I'll stop…for now. You look like you're about to swoon."

.-.-.

_-Behind the scenes -_

Meruem, being quite a nerd for books even in this life, read up on what to do when courting a woman older than he was, as well as advice for courting a person who was blind. 

Pitou, upon coming across his former king pouring over these books one day, found it amusing but knew not to say anything. Not that he needed to reproduce this time around, but at least he was normal in that aspect, was what the cat thought.

"…What is it Pitou?"

"What are you reading?"

"Relationship books," he said this with his usual serious look on his face.

As much as it would have been amusing to see his former king blush while being caught reading up on such things, such an expression was certainly what Pitou would have expected to see on his face.

The again, the fact that Meruem was very serious about making sure that he did not ruin his chance with Komugi was actually quite endearing.

After all, the King never had to try very hard to achieve something before he encountered Komugi and couldn't defeat her in Gungi, so seeing him try to so hard now to achieve something was -

"…Why are you smirking, Pitou?" 

"Ah, don't mind me Your - I mean. Meruem-sama."

"…Hmm."

.-.-.

When Pitou finally came back at the end of the day, it was to a verbally conversing Meruem and Komugi. Which was a good development, but he also sensed a strange sensation of underlying tension in the air between the two.

He went to Kite (after feeling like he should leave after being glared at yet again by Meruem - which seemed to be happening more and more often these days) and asked her about it.

And Kite had laughed and laughed and laughed and finally, once she caught her breath, told her murderer to check what UST meant on the internet, a smirk on her lips.

.-.-.

The first time he accidentally overheard the sounds of his two charges making out, Pitou strolled back out of the house and went away far enough so he could decidedly not hear any risqué sounds or detect his former king's nen and thought in amusement, 'Well, he is certainly different from before in that aspect.'

'Maybe it was meant to be that way? After all, if he had been interested in her before in that way, she would most likely have died. But now that they're both humans…' he let that thought trail off. He felt that delving anymore on that topic was definitely going to get him into trouble.

.-.-.

"Pitou."

"Yes?" It had taken a while, but he managed to make himself stop automatically responding, "Yes, my King."

"Was there anyone else?"

Meruem did not include any names in that sentence, but Pitou know immediately who he was referring to.

"She is just like you, Meruem-sama. Her only interest was in Gungi."

She had been inhumanely good when they had first started playing against each other, but after her true ability in Gungi had been awakened, Komugi had become impossibly good at the game.

She had not become bored by remaining undefeated, but she did feel despondent by it.

 _No matter how long she waited, there was no one else who could rival her, or who came close like you did,_ Pitou thought privately.

Which was why, a year after Meruem first came to them, she announced her retirement and withdrawal from officially competing in Gungi.

When asked why, she simply said, "Anyone who still wants to play against me is welcome. But I have played for twenty years and no one has ever defeated me. I will give everyone else a chance at earning the title of champion."

However, despite not participating in the official games anymore, what usually happened was that the champion would come by and challenge Komugi to a duel afterwards anyway. Although they had won on a worldwide scale, everyone knew the truth.

The only reason they won was because the real Master had chosen to step down.

One of these unsatisfied champions was a girl who had been the same age she was when she first became champion. 

"Komugi-sensei," she addressed respectfully. "How is it that you are able to win all the time?"

"Each time I play, I play with the mindset that if I do not win, I will kill myself."

.-.-.

The age of adulthood Meruem settled on was 18. So after three years of making out without actually getting to the final act and enduring the unresolved sexual tension in the air, he glared at Pitou on his coming of age birthday, who hastily made his exit and only smirked once his king could not see it.

"Komugi," he said quietly, once they were alone. "I want more. Can I?"

.-.-.

This time, when Pitou ventured back to the house, the tension was no longer in the air and there were new, interesting scents. But he wisely held his tongue and simply asked if there was any drinks the two of them wanted him to make.

.-.-.

Their anniversary happened to be on his birthday, simply because he had decided to kiss her once he felt he had become old enough and they had also correspondently consummated their relationship in full on his 18th birthday.

On their first year anniversary, Komugi initiated the making out session.

Lost in the midst of Komugi on top of him, kissing him in such a dominating way, Meruem somehow failed to notice her taking something from under the pillow beneath his head.

And so she managed to handcuff him with ease to the bed.

"Komugi. What is this?" he managed to ask levelly.

"I want to spoil you today. Don't break them, ok?"

.-.-.

Hearing that kind of sound coming from her made him lose the last of his restraint. He broke the handcuffs easily and pinned her down on the bed.

"Meru-" she didn't even manage to finish saying his name before he silenced her with a kiss.

"How can you expect me to stand it when you make a sound like that?" he said harshly after he broke away.

"But -"

.-.-.

The year after that, she took out the handcuffs again. He decided to indulge her and let her cuff him again, with the confidence that he could get out of them anytime he wanted should he not be able to restrain himself any longer.

But only after the cuffs had been securely locked around his wrists did he realise that these weren't ordinary handcuffs. They were Nen-infused handcuffs, and not just any kind, but the sort that could be broken only by the one who made them.

"Komugi!" he snarled, tugging on them even though he knew it was useless to do so.

"Last year I couldn't do it the way I wanted the whole way. This year..."

.-.-.

"Where did you get it?" he asked. He was fixated on the handcuffs and the possibilities of who she could have gotten them from - and who had planted the idea in her head in the first place.

"If I tell you, you're going to beat up the person aren't you?"

"…"

"See! So I'm not going to tell you."

.-.-.

"You're positive she will be safe here?" Meruem gave Gon a sidelong glance. 

"This island doesn't get much action," Gon said jokingly of his home island. Then seriously he said, "People important to me live here. If this place wasn't safe, I would have moved them to some other place that was." 

They both looked at Mito holding Komugi's hand and leading her into the house, her grandmother at the door. Pitou was on the roof, stroking a normal cat who was purring up a storm.

"…Alright then."

.-.-.

Meruem at his full power was a sight to be hold. It was fortunate for them that he was on their side this time.

.-.-.

_To be continued and hopefully properly completed one day...?_


End file.
